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Books/Reading - It's been a while

^^^ i saw the title to this thread and thought "man, i'm gonna recommend the 'ender's game' series..."

it's science fiction, and even if you're not that into scifi, i would definitely say read this anyway, because it is SO well done....one of the best books i've read.

and if you like it, you can read Ender's Shadow, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, etc. (all part of the series)
(i'm currently reading xenocide for the fifth time, and i still can't put it down)

that should keep you reading for a while...
enjoy:)
 
Benefit said:
I would recommend The Wheel of Time series.

It's an excellent read, especially if you like the sort of book that steals ideas from every fantasy writer who ever lived, combines them into a plot that is so lumbering and burdensome it takes eleven 1,000 page novels to cover six months in the narrative and then the author dies of a rare blood disease before finishing the 12th and final book.
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wait, WHAT? robert jordan is dead??
i was waiting for him to finish the last book so i could skip all the long, repetitive, tediousness the books were turning into, and just read about the final battle and get it over with......
i think i only made it up to the 6th or 7th book....

but they were good anyhow...
 
o0psy Daisy said:
^Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I love that series despite all its fuckery. *tugs imaginary braid in direction of Robert Jordan's grave*
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Me too :(

wait, WHAT? robert jordan is dead??
i was waiting for him to finish the last book so i could skip all the long, repetitive, tediousness the books were turning into, and just read about the final battle and get it over with......
i think i only made it up to the 6th or 7th book....

but they were good anyhow...
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The last one was much better. They were still the best at the beginning and middle though.
 
I know you've said you don't like Stephen King but his Dark Tower series is not horror and is very very tripped out and surreal. Defintely not pulp fiction. Or for very intense and engrossing sci-fi, Alistair Reynolds. Pretty fullon, but immeninetly readable.
 
bret eastern ellis. Lunar Park. The best book i;ve ever read. Its metafiction. two narators at the same time and half autobography. Is fantastic
 
I am a grad student.
Reading for school crowds out fun reading.
That said, you must read the cryptonomicon now.

ebola
 
o0psy Daisy said:
^Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah I love that series despite all its fuckery. *tugs imaginary braid in direction of Robert Jordan's grave*

I recommend House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski-- it is an unconventional twisted book that have left some people insane.
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I definitely concur with House of Leaves. It's on my list over in the "books that changed your life" thread. It may be a little much to jump into after a long hiatus from reading, though. I'm reading "Only Revolutions" by the same author. It makes Joyce's "Ulysses" look like a Little Golden Book.
 
In response to your request for interesting nonfiction, I present to you the tale of Valentino Achak Deng. Valentino was one of the Lost Boys of Sudan and this is his story. It chronicles his life from the time he was driven from his village at the age of 6 and his travels to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, much of the time running for his life, hiding from the Murahaleen. It also tells of his struggle to adapt to life in America, when he finally arrived there, from harassment from African-Americans, to his struggle to gain entry into a college.

What makes the book significantly more interesting than your average non-fiction, is that the book is actually a novel. "Historical fiction" would be a more accurate term. Dave Eggers, who wrote the book with Achak, adds color to the tale. Due to the fact that Achak was only a child when much of the story took place, it would have been impossible to recount specific conversations with any degree of accuracy. In the end the story draws from Valentino's experience as well as those of many other Lost Boys. While I'm sure liberties were taken in regard to certain aspects of the book, it is overall a pretty accurate portrait of what life would have been like for any of the Lost Boys.

It is literally the most powerful book I have ever read and I think anyone would enjoy it immensely.

http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org

what-is-the-what.jpg
 
Before giving up on Stephen King entirely, read The Stand; its my favorite book of all time; the shitty made for tv mini-series ass raped the book with a splintered broom handle.

I am reading The Taking by Dean Koontz right now and I am really enjoying it, but I have a thing for apocyliptic books though, so take it with a grain of salt.
 
To the OP...I recommend Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. This book is an absolute joy to read over and over again.
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To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell.
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Next on my reading list...Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Garcia-Marquez yet again. Cant wait :D
 
Benefit said:
I would recommend The Wheel of Time series.

It's an excellent read, especially if you like the sort of book that steals ideas from every fantasy writer who ever lived, combines them into a plot that is so lumbering and burdensome it takes eleven 1,000 page novels to cover six months in the narrative and then the author dies of a rare blood disease before finishing the 12th and final book.
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I read every one of those 11,000 odd pages and then he fucking died. I threw things when I found out.
 
swilow said:
I know you've said you don't like Stephen King but his Dark Tower series is not horror and is very very tripped out and surreal. Defintely not pulp fiction.
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I concur. Book 4: "Wizard and Glass" is like a combination of a western, a medieval knights saga, and a science fiction story. Great books.
 
The Funky Ferret said:
People! People!! Lets not forget the Celestine Prophecy.
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The ideas in the book are nice, but this is one of the shittiest pieces of fiction I've ever read. The narrative is ham-fisted, contrived, and totally lacking in character development, drama, etc. Using an allegory to forward a philosophical point only works if the allegory is GOOD.

I like the author's spiritual perspective, but I would have respected him a lot more if he'd written this book as non-fiction instead of forcing me to read a god-awful story just to get all the info.

I'm reading the sequel now, and for what it's worth to anyone who read the first one and just couldn't take it, the writing gets better in the second book.
 
Wow I didn't realise this thread was still going!

Heaps of awesome ideas here, Am gonna go have a look at a whole bunch of em and try n get through a few.

For the record i have fell down a bit lately and took up getting high everyday again but i might try and still get some reading done if i can manage to care enough / find the money / go to the library :/
 
bret easton ellis got me into reading for myself. before him, i was taught to believe books were for fools.

ellis' style is so god damned descriptive that it almost seems not possible to be that aware of situations and characters that are fiction....but i guess most of his stories come from his own personal life..


but yeah....for the last year i've been into nonfiction....
stuff like ancient egyptian culture, or the Tao te ching (and its many translations), Freud/Jung....(very interested in these two doctors/philosophers, though i wonder how influence they had on america and the pharmaceutical frenzy we seem to be living in

right now i'm reading a memoir on addiction by elizabeth wurtzel
 
shannonsensimilla said:
before him, i was taught to believe books were for fools.
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who would teach you something like that?

alasdair
 
Johnny1 said:
Check out Blindness by Jose Saramago.

It's about an eye surgeon who is driving home from work and who suddenly goes blind (this could take place anywhere, and the location is never specified; Portugal is Saramago's home country). This blindness is catching, and the government, in an effort to stop its spread, forces all who have it into an institution where they have to fend for themselves.

If you're interested in it, read no more about it on the book cover or anywhere else. It's written in a very matter-of-fact, dry style, but give it 20 pages and I bet you won't be able to put it down. Saramago has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Blindness-Harvest-Book-Jose-Saramago/dp/0156007754/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196290784&sr=8-1
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great book, but the ending was pretty shitty and horribly predictable. Other than that it was good.
 
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